You Nearly Missed: Small File Media Festival

by V. S. Wells on October 19th, 2023 at 10:00 AM

1 of 1 2 of 1

It’s easy to disconnect the digital world from reality. But the internet needs physical hardware to run—and that comes at a cost. A 2021 paper found that information and communication technology was responsible for up to 3.9 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions—and that number is set to increase. Yes, streaming 4K shows, just like driving to Lynn Valley or using a straw or eating a hamburger, is killing the planet: not even the chillest hobby is safe from its complicity in climate catastrophe!

Enter the Small File Media Festival, which is in its fourth year of challenging what movies can be. What if every film on display could fit each minute on a 1.44 megabyte floppy disc? An entire feature might take 90 floppies—but that’s in comparison to TikTok streaming at 70 megabytes per minute.

“Small-file ecomedia are not just good for the planet, but essential for people living with intermittent electricity and low bandwidth,” explain the organizers in a statement on the festival’s website.

To that end, this year’s festival, which takes place this weekend at The Cinematheque, highlights 60 works from across the globe. Small file media aesthetics—artifacting, pixels, glitchiness, visual noise—aren’t a downside: filmmakers are embracing them as deliberate choices, making works that celebrate or interrogate the form, with ecojustice and big tech skepticism almost inherently woven into the medium.

The festival’s set to have four series. Lo Rez Skylines / Solarpunk Futures is part of the opening event, challenging the hi-tech panopticon of ever-present social media. Tiger Tiger / Small File Filmmaking Workshop Showcase explores foreboding and highlights some homegrown projects, followed by a talk from filmmaker and researcher Mehvish Rather. A Certain Feeling for the Universe / Rings of Saturn meditates on yearning and creative imagination, while Shards of Crystalism / Silent Running wraps up the festival with homages to Sudanese conceptualists and early cinema.

Besides the curated short program programs, there’s also an award ceremony on Sunday night, and an array of talks delving into the politics and possibilities of the genre.

Small file media might be niche, but its unique analogue-tinged art exists in myriad ways: a skeptical reaction to endless technological bloating; a full-throated embrace of ’90s throwback vapourwave nostalgia; a more equal playing field for filmmakers from all corners of the world; and a money-where-your-mouth-is dedication to reducing emissions produced by film arts.

Or, as the organizers put it, “cosmically healthy, community-building, and punk AF, small file ecomedia will heal the world, one pixel at a time.”